He actually died from drugs on July 3, 2015. Depressing how he starred in a PSA warning others, fully aware how dangerous drugs are and, despite it all, still wasnt able to overcome the addiction. You can know something is bad for you, but addiction is literal chains Edit for those researching: Source is Vince Jackson by Reddy
@@FilmmakeroftheFuture He probably had a lot of lingering health complications after overcoming his addiction, given he started when he was 8 years old.
I mean these types of PSAs and the DARE program are proven to actually increase drug use in the long run because people figure out they're misleading and not rooted in fact for relatively harmless things like weed and decide they're full of it on everything
@@DaimosZthat is a crazy early age to start using drugs, that usually only happens if your parents use with you or you were raised in an insanely tough city gang environment
This is my first time hearing about this movie. What disturbed me the most is that he was extremely young when he did drugs. Usually PSAs against drugs that are shown to kids usually show older teens/adults as the ones who are addicted.
@@michaelthecinebroand I thought 80’s DARE shit was bad… we were guinea pigs in a social experiment with no way to track data to come to any sort of conclusion. This cartoon is pure nightmare fuel. The following generation subjected to even more terror tactics. This is what happens when you let cops design your anti drug programs instead of sociologists and psychologists
It really sucks what happened to Vince, but the drugs aren't entirely to blame. A lot of drug PSAs like this anthropomorphize drugs into evil demons that seek to seduce the innocent and take over their minds, but his addiction didn't form in a vacuum. Like, before he ended up doing acid, it was clear that Vince was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms from being forced to quit cold turkey, and it didn't seem like he was getting any kind of professional help or support from any of the adults in his life, beyond a stern "drugs are bad" lecture. It's no wonder he went back to the dealer and got hooked on something stronger and more dangerous (speaking of which why hasn't anyone arrested this creep selling drugs to kids?). He eventually got rehab, but not until he nearly died and full recovery was near-impossible. I feel like if he had gotten better support sooner, he wouldn't have ended up this way.
It really sucks what happened to Vince, but the drugs aren't entirely to blame. A lot of drug PSAs like this anthropomorphize drugs into evil demons that seek to seduce the innocent and take over their minds, but his addiction didn't form in a vacuum. Like, before he ended up doing acid, it was clear that Vince was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms from being forced to quit cold turkey, and it didn't seem like he was getting any kind of professional help or support from any of the adults in his life, beyond a stern "drugs are bad" lecture. It's no wonder he went back to the dealer and got hooked on something stronger and more dangerous (speaking of which why hasn't anyone arrested this creep selling drugs to kids?). He eventually got rehab, but not until he nearly died and full recovery was near-impossible. I feel like if he had gotten better support sooner, he wouldn't have ended up this way.
screamed when i saw the cover. my guidance counselor showed me this in third grade and i never ever forgot it. i even found it a couple years ago but its so niche i didn't have anyone to talk about it to. so glad this video was made.
watched the whole thing through and i can really relate to this scaring you straight because it scared me straight too. vince repeating "not even once" at the end has stuck with me forever
@@Theunloved1738 it would actually be more scarier if this was in the style of a junji ito story, being a metaphor of how drugs can physically and psychologically fuck you up
I live in iraq and when i was in elementary school we had this subject called ''reading" this subject's book included stories and poems, it was my favourite subject because the book had alot of fun kids stories, there was this one story that was a landmine psa, The story talked about a bunch of boys playing football, the kids noticed that every time they start playing a boy in a wheelchair sits outside of his home and watches them so one day they decided to invite him to join along, they walk up to him and asked him if he wants to play with them, then the boy says: "I cant i don't have any legs" Then proceeded to show them, then they ask him why so he told them about the story of how he stumbled upon a mine planted on the ground of a forest, even though his parent always warned him about them he did not listen and tried to move it with his feet but it exploded and amputated his leg. As a child this story not only scared me but it also made me feel devastated and sad. My parent and teachers always told us never to carry anything from the ground even if it was a pen or a toy and after reading this story it made me way more terrified.
Yeesh that reminds me of the "Red Banana" psa for landmines where a little girl steps on a landmine when trying to pick up toys and said red banana. The ending shot of the psa shows nothing but her blown up foot, now seperated from her body. Its so alarming to hear that dangerous things like landmines are just out in the open :(
I remember around the mid-90s when I was fairly small, there was this show on a German kids' channel where each episode was about a kid in a different, usually 3rd world, country and their struggles. There was one episode where a girl had her hand (or hands, I don't remember the details) blown off by a landmine. I clearly remember this part of her doing these special fancy hand motions at the beginning of the episodes, before it happened. YEARS later, I'd always think of it when the streetlight came and I had to run home from playing outside. I was running long a brief patch of clear, well paved, Southern German sidewalk, thinking I was gonna get my arms or legs blown off. I haven't though to it in forever before it came to my mind again after reading this comment. If there are any Germans here, do you know that show and what it was? I thought it was "Die Rechte der Kinder" but none of the episode fit the description. Don't ask me why I want to find that disturbing piece of media, but I kinda do.
There is a British PSA about landmines, you can find online. It's a girl's soccer game and everyone is having a good time. One girl scores the winning goal and as she's jumping around with a friend, and landmines goes off. That was intense. Then someone on the internet went and added the Benny Hill theme to it. I have a dark sense of humor so yeah it became funny.
There’s a part of me that thinks they should not show this to elementary schoolers because of how intense it is (especially the ending). But considering Vince did drugs for the first time when he was EIGHT, maybe elementary schoolers should see this. I’m not surprised his parents didn’t know or hadn’t discussed drugs with him because nobody expects a little kid to try drugs. It shows the importance of informing children one way or another about how dangerous using drugs is.
the scene where he is tripping is genuinely so terrifying. never have heard of this cartoon before. although I feel like I will have it stuck in my head for a while. the visuals and the storytelling are so unsettling produced how they were.
As a mother myself, I can't even imagine how hard and difficult it must have been for his mom to illustrate and narrate this. I would be breaking down and sobbing, like, that's your baby boy and knowing he may never come out the other side ok must have been so hard for her to accept.
In 1976 I was in the 6th grade. A teacher showed the class a film on the dangers of smoking cigarettes. The film showed pictures of what cigarettes do to the lungs (though I don’t remember if they were just pictures or of actual lungs). There was a lot of information on the dangerous effects of smoking. That film had such a huge impact on me that I never even tried cigarettes. I’m 61 years old now and would never think of even taking a puff. I’m thankful I saw that film.
When I was in middle school (early 2010s) my science teacher pulled out two ACTUAL preserved lungs to show us the difference between a smoker’s lung and a regular one. Don’t know if it traumatized me, so much as just grossed me out
I've become so numb to horror themes that even gore videos barely affect me, and yet this cartoon somehow still shook me to my core The fact that you had to watch this as a kid is insane, I actually feel bad for you
The crazy thing is, you can tell she’s genuinely trying to sugarcoat it for the target audience, but due to the horrors of what they went through, there’s not much of a way to really do that!
This contains spoilers so you may want to skip this comment until you've watched the video. I think what truly gets me after seeing the linked video is that it is a real story of a real 8-year old. Nobody expects their 8-year old child to get involved in pot or LSD. I have not been able to confirm it independently but according to an article written by Narayan Reddy on March 12,2017 in The Cornell Daily Sun, Vince is no longer with us as of July 3, 2015. I cannot find anything about Vince's dad or Sue Jackson Pettit, other than she is a published author. I can only imagine the crap they had to deal with.
@@serenegenerally Yes, I remember in grade school warnings about teenagers that where hanging around the playground handing out candy that was laced with LSD. This was in the 70s btw.
I think they should still be using this video to teach this to children even today, the fact that it’s so disturbing for many reasons shows it would be effective
What makes this story even sadder is that Vince had a little sister. Not only did he try to convince her to use the drugs too but she watched her big brother get devoured by the Drug Monster. I don't want my little sister to witness what that poor girl did.
My school ALSO showed us this movie. I was around 7 or 8. Like kindergarten or first grade. I am 27 now and I still remember the vivid nightmares I had! I tried to VAGUELY look up things about it just so see if I remembered it wrong, but I couldn't find anything on it! So thank you for this nostalgic - albeit terrifying - trip down memory lane for me.
So you’re telling me some grown ass man chose an eight year old child as someone worthy of a customer? Maybe that one Moral Orel episode about crack was more realistic than I thought 💀
Not even just an 8 year old. An 8 year old in his most vulnerable state. Remember, the guy who gave him the drugs to begin with did so when he was dealing with the divorce of his parents. He hardly got to see his dad and he missed him dearly. It made him feel all kinds of feelings, sadness, anger, etc. And as a result, the guy took advantage of that by saying the drugs would make him happy
4:44 XD that level of discomfort freaking killed me. LOL Also, I'm sorry you got traumatized by this as a kid..I can see why horrible this could be at a young age. I'm also glad you understand the film and its symbolism. I had nightmares of Jeepers Creepers for like 2-3 years after being exposed to it at a young age until I watched it again. Understood it and the nightmares stopped. RIP Vince. Yes, this should be a series.
😱 Thank you for sharing that. As a person coming out a 40 year addiction and 7 rehabs, this really hit home. I wonder how this might’ve changed me had I seen it at the age you saw it. I saw so much of myself in this. I’m coming up on 3yrs clean and this just reinforced why I’m so happy with where I am, but still scared about where I never wanna be again. Thanks again 🙏🏾
My school showed this film to us in fifth grade. I grew up in a small countryside town where the teachers would start drilling "drugs are bad" into children's heads as early as kindergarten. It felt like every after-school program or meeting had a psa about the negative effects alcohol and non-medical drugs have on the brain and body. This cartoon and the story about the girl who's face got disfigured in a drunk driving accident always stuck out the most in my mind
This is some real uncanny valley nightmare shit. Absolutely would've given me nightmares as a kid. In the early 90s we had DARE and Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue but somehow this actually seems WORSE, which I didn't think possible. On the other hand, I never did drugs, so maybe it works, idk. (We also got the pictures of addicts and such. At the time it was disturbing but now it's just sad. They're human beings. That's someone's child. And they're being used as a scare tactic in a crappy children's program.)
Yeah we had Dare and the Pal program and my elementary school actually had a staff member whose job it was to teacher us drug intervention (when we were younger we actually watched films, stories, etc. about what it's like if your mom or dad has a drinking problem and how to avoid peer pressure)
The DARE program was a massive failure if you look into it. They teach kids about addiction differently now because of how negative the results of the dare program were. Both of my parents grew up with the dare program and they both still did drugs in their teen years. Hearing my parents talk about their personal experiences with drugs openly and honestly is why I have never tried any. I won't even drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes for the same reason. Teaching about drugs and addiction HAS to be more complex than just "drugs are bad so don't do them and if you're doing them then stop", or it won't be nearly as effective.
@@kodomoshawn6729 yeah I wasn't being serious when I said "maybe DARE works" because the evidence is impossible to ignore. It was a weird time to be a kid, though. Absolutely none of their scare tactics make the tiniest bit of sense in hindsight. Really, the only reason I never did drugs was lack of interest.
My school had the DARE program and some of the PSAs were insane to hilarious. There was one where a kid got hooked on heroin. After the 3rd time he tried it he was a full-blown junkie, there was a scene where he pulls a cigar box from under his bed and it was like a junkie pro kit. He had a needle, bent spoon lighter, rubber tube, the works.
i pretty much grew up with a alcoholic drug addict mom in the 90s, i graduated from that program DARE, and i dont do drugs or drink at all. so i am proud of myself.
When I was a fourth grader, a person with local Health Center came into my class to talk about bullying and how it’s wrong. They had us watch a live action, short movie that basically consisted of a boy being the subject of bullying. He was relentlessly bullied to the point where he was chased into the street where he was hit by oncoming car. Scared the shit out of me as a kid. They show the moments before getting hit, the sound of him being hit, and the aftermath. They didn’t show his body but they showed blood and one of his shoes in the road. I mean this is what I remember. It’s possible that my mind has embellished it over the years But It’s straight up traumatized me as a kid. I still think about the shoe in the road. To this day hearing the name of the center triggers an anxiety attack.
@@elijahguest1885 oh Jesus! I think it was. I just looked it up. Scrolled through the video and saw the shoe. Oh my god. I could be wrong, but I don’t really wanna watch it to make sure…
@@bramblechaser162 its true go watch his other films tears on a highway about a kid getting bullied on a bus causing a car crash killing half the kids on board, the editing is amazingly bad, and scars which is even more low budget but most likely the most positive this he’s made, insane stuff.
I saw this when I was in the second grade. They took all the classes into the auditorium and showed this to us. This movie traumatized me and my friends to the point we saw the colour green as "evil". This haunted me for years, and at first when I clicked on the video, I didn't recognize it. But seeing that frame with the monster behind the boy brought back so many memories and feelings. I'm really glad someone else remembers this- and relates to those feelings. Thank you for reviewing this and bringing this back into the light🙏
This reminds me of a story, me and the rest of my class had to read and do assignments on in either fifth or sixth grade before I switched schools. It was about a boy living with his parents and their pet(can’t remember what it was), which starts off normally as you’d expect, but over the course of the story, the dad becomes bigger, angrier, scarier and even dragon-like, to the point, his wife, son and pet leave him, since they’d be crushed if they stay in the house with him, who now looks like a full on dragon, filling each and every room in the end. We all kind of interpreted it as the dad literally and metaphorically “becoming too much” both towards his family and around others, in a violent or abusive way, most likely stemming from alcohol or drug addiction.
Thank you so much for making a video about this. I had tried before to search for it to no avail. I saw this over 20 years ago in public school on a VHS tape. I lived through years of people offering me drugs, especially in my teens and 20s, and I never took the offer. Part of my mind would always remember the metaphor in the story.
Something that really scared me was when we listened/watched "The Hitchhiker" by Orson wells in 8th grade. It was an old radio play and one of the educational companies put it to some cheap computer animation. Which made it even scarier. It was like one of those creepy pasta computer games. Strangely, while my class was watching a kid got startled and broke the classroom bottle of hand sanitizer and it spilled all over the floor. Whenever I smell that brand of hand sanitizer I get filled with existential dread haha
Holy crap. I can't believe you found this. I remember seeing this in elementary, but I couldn't remember most of the events or the exact name. Man this makes me feel old. Looking back and seeing the things I missed as a kid makes this nostalgic and makes me feel unnerved.
For my fellow Swedes, I know I'm not the only one disturbed by the Alfons Åberg (or Alfie Atkins)-book/cartoon with the apparent monster under his bed. For those who don't know, the cartoon follows Alfons, who's normally a very easy-going and nice kid, wracked with guilt because he punched a younger kid some days before, and the younger kid hasn't shown up at the football field ever since then. The kid was supposed to find a lost ball, but wasn't able to, so Alfons got unreasonably angry at the kid, punched him and gave him a nosebleed, causing him to run away from there. Alfons thinks about it while lying in bed, imagining copious amount of blood flowing out of the other kid's nose as he worries about the kid possibly being dead. As if this wasn't creepy enough already, Alfons then notices the presence of a "monster" under his bed. It's dark under the bed, and all you can see of the monster are its cat-like eyes, just silently blinking. It's a manifestation of Alfons' guilt over the incident, and it stays there until Alfons finally manages to make it up to the younger kid (who wasn't dead obviously, but was just avoiding Alfons). So the "monster" under Alfons' bed doesn't actually do anything except lie there, reminding Alfons of his guilt & blinking at the viewer. It seems so calm, but the aura it gives off is so damn creepy, it's continued to freak me out to this very day. Oh, and another freaky moment is when you see how it all went down when Alfons punched the other kid. If you know Alfons, you know him as very mild-mannered, and with no violent or mean tendencies displayed in other episodes. So suddenly seeing him bully some other kid, threatening him and then punching him really gives you the creeps. Especially because when Alfons dishes out the punch, he doesn't even look angry. There's an almost dead look on his face; a silent rage. Freaky as hell!
@@rutgerhauerfan I’m not Swedish(I’m Danish), but as someone who also read/watched Alfons as a kid, I remember that episode too! It’s been years though, so I don’t remember everything.
psas are something i have always found people tend to overlook the artist value of regardless of the era they aired in . i think so many people assume that theres only two sides of the psa genres. either absurd "trying to be hip" styling or shock value. when thats really only a fraction of the variety of psas that exist and the functions they serve. every psa has a target age group regardless of topic. its interesting to me that most of the time psas targeting this particular age group seemed to always perfer mimicking the familiar to teach. instead of something like this where its not just mimicking a tv show or a video game. it instead used the core method of learning for that age group or at least the more culturally common one. direct but slightly whimsical storytelling. growing up with writers like Robert Munsh, dr.suess , Simms Taback to name a few. theres something about this style of storytelling and writing that really brings more depth to the approach and care put into a psa. i can think of a range of psas that tried to use firm storytelling to teach children valuable things but ultimately those psas dont stick in your mind in the same way, you might remember say a rhythm or a visual cue from it but the actual moral is lost over time . which just goes to show this psa stands out in a sea of psas that over complicated things. i wonder if its a whole unexplored genre of style for psa tbh cause the only other cases that i think of are the ones of the paper cutout cat and child going through everyday lessons . but those are from like i think the 50s so its hard to say if theyre actually doing a good job or if its the unease of old media thats causing that affect. great video it was genuinely both engaging and informative , its always interesting to hear about peoples experience with the more obscure media out there
I actually remember this 100%. I was so young when i watched this, i didnt even realize it was about hard drugs, i always remembered it as "the boy who was swallowed by the SMOKE monster."
@@michaelthecinebro I was like 7 or 8 tops when I saw it as a kid, at that point in my life I had never even heard of marijuana before. My dad smoked cigarettes, and that's pretty much all I knew about. I legitimately thought that the movie was about the dangers of smoking cigarettes. I blame whatever teacher at the time that showed it to me, I really needed to understand the context first.
Not a cartoon or 'movie' per se, but i remember having to read a book in the 4th grade called 'A Bad Case of the Stripes' and when i tell you the imagery of that book, along with creepy and slow narration(due to me having dyslexia and reading comprehension problems, i needed an auditory ver. of the book) it seriously had me crying my eyes out. I tried reading it again at 18 and i still got a really nervous feeling..
When I was in middle school, most of us knew about this kid called Ben who was about 8 that dealt drugs for his parents. He was this cute little kid. Very friendly. But when we found out about him we felt terrible for his home situation. He acted empty? It's hard to describe otherwise. Like an older kid but hollow inside. My friend told the VP but we never found out what happened. Ben just stopped coming to school one day and that was that. I don't get notifications (like if I get replies) but yeah we all hoped for his happiness and safety.
Oh my gosh! I watched this video with my class back in fourth grade. One week every year of elementary school, we would go over the dangers of drugs. This was by far the scariest video they showed us. I didn't sleep well for weeks after watching it. Always worried I would see the drug dragon in the middle of the night. I completely forgot this film existed until now.
I may have commented here, but I feel like I have more to say. This time, it is about the film itself. It seems that instead of fully dumbing the issue down for kids, it instead makes it multi-layed with the shaded drawings and monster analogy. When Vince tries out the drug for the first time, he is in Stage 1 of addiction. When Vince starts stealing money to buy more drugs, I think that’s Stage 2. But he’s not fully dependent yet. But then, he used the drugs so much that he entered Stage 3, tolerence. However, because his mother threw away the drugs, he skipped to Stage 6, which is relapse. That was when he returned to drugs, thus the cycle began again. He went back to Stage 1, initial use, then Stage 2, abuse, then Stage 3, tolerence and then, the monster swallowed him, which may represent his entry into Stage 4, Dependence. The narrator also said: “The boy only loved the magic of the Drug Monster”, which probably further solidifies that this is indeed Stage 4. Vince selling the drugs to kids is probably Stage 5, addiction. He’s so addicted that he wants others to become addicted just like him. But thankfully, the police stopped him and put him in prison. Also, one of the other comments said that he died on July 3rd, 2015. This was because of a drug overdose. That was the 6th and final stage, relapse. But this relapse would be his last.
I WATCHED THIS BACK IN LIKE 2002 AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! I really thought I’d imagined it, and had pretty much completely forgotten about it until now. Wild!
What gives people the right to traumatize kids with stuff like this? This guy said even watching it now scared him like anticipating the acid scene. Why do kids need to be shown something that makes them cry, not eat lunch, and be afraid of something for the rest of their lives? It’s not like you’re powerless as an adult. Just tell kids to tell an adult if someone tries to give them drugs and move on. God damn. I remember being so scared watching stuff like this one time I plugged my ears and closed my eyes. My teacher made me unplug my ears and watch. I was fucking 5. Fuck any administration who showed this to kids
That blobfish image is more disturbing than many know. It's a deformed corpse that imploded due to rapid pressure change, leading it to be completely unrecognizable. Living blobfish just look like normal, plain-looking fish.
This before and after drug pictures definitely kept me away from hard drugs. And I remember a presentation of a mom who made her daughter who overdosed journal into a book and that also stuck with me and I also went to an alternative school that showed us pictures of crimes scenes
For the record he died after getting out of prison and relapsing, which is a shame because not only was he in a relationship and had a kid according to a blog his mom posted on, but his mom was planning to write a sequel story which I guess was supposed to be a happy story of him turning his life around 😢
I saw this in elementary school, I got messed up to the point of vomiting. 🤮 In the 2010s I saw a website that continued Vince’s story and chronicling his post prison recovery. It took a whole lot of faith and dedication for him to get clean. He also was revealed to have become a stepdad and a regular dad during this time in hopes of escaping addiction, but that just gave him a reason to hide his addiction. I hope can find that site again.
I fully sobbed when I learnt it was a true story told byb his mother and that he died and started when he was 8. I hope people who sell drugs to children never see the light of day and get help, and I hope that they realize how fucked up it is.
Now that I think about it, I'd like to see a Babadook inspired film but instead of grief, it's about substance abuse with the monster, like the Babadook, being a tulpa that's a representation of it. I can imagine the monster possessing one of the kids in a family who's dealing with drugs and is slowly changing to look like someone who's gone through severe addiction, almost like a walking, distorted, infected corpse.
I live in Argentina and I remember that when I was in primary school and in a "special class" a teacher showed us a film about a tragedy that occurred in my country, it is called "La Noche de los Lapices", it is about a series of kidnapp1ngs of high school students who had demanded the granting of discounted bus tickets for students. The film recreates the story from the beginning of the student protests, and the second part tells the circumstances of the young people, following in parallel the situation of the families of the captives and that of their captors. The film focuses more on the physical and psychological experience of the characters than on the political and social context developing the story in a way that it is seen as universal and capable of happening in any authoritarian regime. I still remember the film, it shows you that harsh reality and for 13/14 year olds it was very hard to see that, but the film is worth it, it is not suitable for sensitive people but it is always better to know history so that it is not repeated... The film is here on RUclips in case you want to see it ☺
Whoever did the music/sound design did a great job. The distorted forced happiness of the music when he tries the new drug makes it really uncomfortable
What makes me angry about these anti-drug propaganda videos like this, is that they never discuss the reasons why people turn to drugs an alcohol in the first place. I mean there must be something else wrong with Vince which made him try drugs in the first place. Yes divorce can be hard on a child, but there must be other factors involved like is he suffering from bipolar disorder? Was he genetically disposed to be addicted to other types of vice? Even if he didn't smoke "The Magic Pipe" would he have divulged into alcoholism at a later age?
so a movie that absolutely terrified me was return to oz from 1985. that movie messed me up so bad i thought i had dreamet it up . i only found out it was real movie in 8th ish grade . i was like maybe 6 when i first saw it and for me the jump from what wizard of oz was to what the movies was freaky.
Wow I never saw this and I am happy I never did. Goosebumps was rough enough for me as a kid. Other things like Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Courage the cowardly dog also had me in shivers as a kid xD
So glad you put this together -- it's really reassuring to hear that I'm not the only one who got shaken up by this. I saw it in 6th grade and was going through some serious stuff, and WALKED IN on this after getting back to class late. Had no context about what was going on or why we were watching this thing... messed me up for at least a day or two. Still don't like thinking about it too much. If you wanna go down the rabbit hole of creepy in-school PSAs for kids, there's one I vaguely remember from early elementary school. It was pretty standard-fare "don't get in the van & don't let people touch you below the waist" stuff; I personally didn't find it too unsettling, but iirc it shook a few kids up. Only part I remember is something about a kid getting piano lessons from a guy that turned out to be a creep.
When I was a kid, my dad brought home 3 vhs tapes of something called “The Dangerous Journey”. I’m 25 now and was probably about 4-5 when I first saw these movies. I grew up in a Christian home and the movies were an adaptation of the story “A Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan. The movie was done in almost the exact same format as this one! It was narrated with still drawn images. And boy let me tell you, those images were HAUNTING. There were two scenes in particular that kept me up at night literally shaking as a 4 year old. The first was the main character’s (named Christian) battle with Apollyon (Satan). The way Apollyon was draw was literal nightmare fuel. I would hear his snarles in my dreams and he looked like pure death. The second scene was when Christian walked through “The valley of the shadow of death”. For like a good 10 minutes Christian is walking on this extremely narrow pathway with a dark black abyss surrounding him on all sides, all the while you hear and see literal depictions of demons swirling him and tormenting him. The sounds those demons made would keep me up all night. I couldn’t get a wink of sleep after watching that. It took me YEARS to be able to watch it again but as an adult who loves horror, I actually love it now! The art is actually very beautifully done. Also as a Christian, I can appreciate the message that the story is trying to tell and actually find it kind of cozy now. Definitely give it a watch. There’s a full version of it on here!
When I was a kid, few books scared me. Defeating the drug monster by making sure I would never be addicted to drugs as a child was easy. But the horror of the Vietnam War? That swallowed me, despite I was Icelandic. Dracula by Bram Stoker felt like an escape route from reality while tons of boys and girls were swallowed up by the drug monster. The Never Ending Story wasn´t scary. Watching Tarzan being raised by apes wasn´t scary. Of course Scar was scary. Reading about Marvel villains going crazy committing acts of genocide wasn´t scary because it was all happening elsewhere in reality. But watching Apocalypse Now for the first time with a group of 11 to 13 year olds scarred me emotionally for the rest of my life. That was scary. That was director Francis Ford Coppola telling us about things that happened in real life - the horrors of the Vietnam War. Thanks for your video man!! Best wishes to you from Iceland.
I immediately clicked on this video because of the thumbnail. I remember that story! It made me not want to take drugs lol, so it was effective for sure. Thanks for the video, brough back some memories.
Requiem for a dream had the same affect on me. Basically contributed to my insomnia. To this very day I cannot feel ok even if I think about the movie. And the ending music. Oh god why. I just couldn't. Still too much. I just watch the trailer and the ending and it scared the shit out of me.
Metaphors and parables are great when you're trying to teach kids social-emotional or moral lessons, but risky or problematic when you're trying to teach them concrete skills or teach them to avoid a specific kind of threat or problem, because young children may not understand that the drug monster is not a real monster, that the "magical pipe" is a particular piece of drug paraphernalia, and that candy, prescription medications, vitamins, and food aren't the "drugs" they're being warned about. It's really hard to strike that fine balance in children's educational media between being trite, condescending and corny on one hand and excessively and counterproductively scary on the other. Ideally, you want kids to come away with a clear understanding of the specific threat *and* a very clear and confident action plan for how to avoid and deal with it.
I remember this PSA being reccomended to me on RUclips. I grew up British and when comparing British nostalgia to American nostalgia I realised that while Americans have more drug PSAs we have more fire safety PIFs. The Welsh came up with a whole TV show to teach kids about fire safety. I'd say my equivalent to The Drug Monster is a PIF that no critic on RUclips has covered; Francis The Firefly. I remember it well, the fire brigade came to my infants school with a portable cinema just to show Francis the Firefly that may have tricked my brain into thinking it was a full length movie also there was a mannequin dressed as a fireman which I found a bit distracting.
1:24 ANNUALLY? Bruh, we got ONE class on the subject with drug effects imitating goggles and an expert talk on the matter in 7th grade and that's it😂. But since this country is like one county in the US in size, let alone the GDP or money spent on education being a factor. Drugs are bad and I CHOSE at like the age of 7 to never do it in my life. Alcohol and tea are not as harmful, especially the latter but they're easy to not get addicted to. Speaking of tea, I didn't drink a sip in a looooong time. Mainly because I am scared that I burn myself making one. And given my record with luck, even if the chance is low I'd still be able to hurt myself with that
Seeing junkies on the street, and in crime shows was what scared me when I was a child. Being around alcoholics also made me despise that substance. I don't get why hard drugs appeal to so damn many. Did they not grow up in the same world?
There's a plethora of documentaries, books and songs that speaks from the perspective on an addict and explain why. TL;Dr: Getting high brings relief from the turmoil people felt and addiction causes physical changes to the brain.
Very little treatment available for people with mental health issues and trauma, as well as chronic pain, especially for people in poverty. People who are in pain seek relief in any way they can find, and addiction itself is a disorder. It runs in families and doesn't discriminate between substances, gambling, spending money, sex...it can happen to anyone. All it takes is a wonky gene and a bad experience
I have to admit if I saw this as a kid I would think "so where is the magical pipe that you speak of? Monsters are cool dude!".. don't worry I found the magical pipe
There is one PSA, I don't remember it well, but it was in health class and regarding smoking cigarettes. It is mostly similar, an animated kid's book, and uses scary imagery of monsters to illustrate addiction, HOWEVER, A common refrain in the video is "Smoking Calms My Nerves" said in a funny way. That line stuck with me to this day, and may have planted the mental seeds to start my smoking habit, thus having the exact opposite intended effect of the film. That's all I remember, no idea what it was called.
The only anti drug stuff I remember from school was a D.A.R.E. program that consisted of a random volunteer adult and a packet of "likely scenarios" we would have to then decide what the right choice (aka, whatever variation of "saying no"). I only remember one where a kid found some beer under his brother’s bed while alone and "No one was pressuring him to take a drink. What should he do?" and all I could wonder was why exactly this boy was just randomly under his brother’s bed and possibly stealing from him. It shouldn’t matter if he found beer, he shouldn’t be in his brother’s room without permission! (That was the rule at my house.)
This kind of looks like a short horror film trying to replicate a public access tv show or low budget educational VHS tape that would go down a much darker path like The Kid and the Camera and maybe end with it turning out that the kid was literally eaten and we see the mother's reaction and the body is left to the viewer's imagination (kind of like Moonraven's version of Tailypo).
"Ugh, verse, oi." I remember the drugs-r-bad-mmkay programs starting in first grade. And they showed quite a few, not only about drugs but smoking and alcohol. The smoking videos in particular really got to me because I had a relative who smoked.
I remember watching this movie in 5th grade! It was so horrifying I couldn't sleep. But then I realized that "being eaten by the drug monster" is just a metaphor for when a drug becomes addictive.
Holy crap! I remembered this! I saw it in 2nd grade and it freaked me out! My heart nearly stopped when you said the video was still going because I knew I was instantly about to witness something that scared me as a kid.
When I was like 8 years old my school actually went to a theater where we watched a movie where this woman was talking about some kid going to a lake and eventually drowning or something like that. But basically this was a French live stream short film about depression or something like that. I can't remember very well at all, all I remember is the black and white art style and the heavy shading. I dunno, this kinda reminded me of that. I don't have an exact translation of the name but I assume it's something like "the dark lake" I just thought it was fun and didn't really see the theme or message at the time. :)
I never heard of this short film until you covered it, but I’m a Xellenial, having been a kid in the Reagan era and remembering Red Ribbon weeks in my adolescence and adulthood. My mom was a nurse so if I ever wanted to know of the affects drugs have on the body, she told me. Plus, I witnessed my dad overcoming nicotine. He and mom gave up alcohol long before I was born but the strongest addiction to overcome was smoking. Fortunately dad quit cold Turkey with mom’s prodding and my tombstone illustration at ten. It was enough to convince him and I had him up until he turned eighty two.
oh my god this brought up insane memories! i watched this in school when i was in 5th grade & the reveal that Vince was real gave me nightmares, i barely remembered the rest but the moment i saw the art style it all came flooding back to me. i always hated red ribbon week because all of the videos & stuff they showed us scared me as a super anxious kid lol. cartoon all-stars to the rescue is one that’s really stuck with me too all these years, it had a bunch of popular cartoon characters trying to help a boy addicted to drugs & it really unsettled me
This was so heavy and surprisingly disturbing in the art, story, music, sounds, and the revelation of it being a true story that I’m gonna have to decompress and watch something light after this.
In elementary school for PE they made us watch a video on skin cancer and the importance of sun screen. The video had clips of surgeries and victims before and after pics. Boy its been over 20 years and till this day even if i walk from car to the door without sunscreen I'm having a bad day. 😭
He actually died from drugs on July 3, 2015. Depressing how he starred in a PSA warning others, fully aware how dangerous drugs are and, despite it all, still wasnt able to overcome the addiction. You can know something is bad for you, but addiction is literal chains
Edit for those researching: Source is Vince Jackson by Reddy
I thought he kicked the habit in the late aughts.
@@FilmmakeroftheFuture He probably had a lot of lingering health complications after overcoming his addiction, given he started when he was 8 years old.
I mean these types of PSAs and the DARE program are proven to actually increase drug use in the long run because people figure out they're misleading and not rooted in fact for relatively harmless things like weed and decide they're full of it on everything
@@DaimosZthat is a crazy early age to start using drugs, that usually only happens if your parents use with you or you were raised in an insanely tough city gang environment
@@erikgilson1687 yeah it's pretty depressing
The freaking floating above the bed watching a monster eat your body below is HORRIFYING.
Yeah, I hated that so much
Blue I’d have nightmares for weeks 😭🙏
Definitely I remember that scene still to this day
Did you know that Tim Burton did his own version of Hansel And Gretel in the 80s?
Vince being real and Sue being his mother honest to god BROKE me. I actually teared up.
This is my first time hearing about this movie. What disturbed me the most is that he was extremely young when he did drugs. Usually PSAs against drugs that are shown to kids usually show older teens/adults as the ones who are addicted.
Yeah. To have the tape end with that is wild
@@michaelthecinebroand I thought 80’s DARE shit was bad… we were guinea pigs in a social experiment with no way to track data to come to any sort of conclusion.
This cartoon is pure nightmare fuel.
The following generation subjected to even more terror tactics.
This is what happens when you let cops design your anti drug programs instead of sociologists and psychologists
Dealers know to target younger kids now because they lack street smarts. They tell the kid "it's magic candy" etc.
It really sucks what happened to Vince, but the drugs aren't entirely to blame. A lot of drug PSAs like this anthropomorphize drugs into evil demons that seek to seduce the innocent and take over their minds, but his addiction didn't form in a vacuum. Like, before he ended up doing acid, it was clear that Vince was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms from being forced to quit cold turkey, and it didn't seem like he was getting any kind of professional help or support from any of the adults in his life, beyond a stern "drugs are bad" lecture. It's no wonder he went back to the dealer and got hooked on something stronger and more dangerous (speaking of which why hasn't anyone arrested this creep selling drugs to kids?). He eventually got rehab, but not until he nearly died and full recovery was near-impossible. I feel like if he had gotten better support sooner, he wouldn't have ended up this way.
It really sucks what happened to Vince, but the drugs aren't entirely to blame. A lot of drug PSAs like this anthropomorphize drugs into evil demons that seek to seduce the innocent and take over their minds, but his addiction didn't form in a vacuum. Like, before he ended up doing acid, it was clear that Vince was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms from being forced to quit cold turkey, and it didn't seem like he was getting any kind of professional help or support from any of the adults in his life, beyond a stern "drugs are bad" lecture. It's no wonder he went back to the dealer and got hooked on something stronger and more dangerous (speaking of which why hasn't anyone arrested this creep selling drugs to kids?). He eventually got rehab, but not until he nearly died and full recovery was near-impossible. I feel like if he had gotten better support sooner, he wouldn't have ended up this way.
screamed when i saw the cover. my guidance counselor showed me this in third grade and i never ever forgot it. i even found it a couple years ago but its so niche i didn't have anyone to talk about it to. so glad this video was made.
watched the whole thing through and i can really relate to this scaring you straight because it scared me straight too. vince repeating "not even once" at the end has stuck with me forever
Even the art style looks scary 😭
For real
Junji ito has been real silent since this came out
@@Theunloved1738 it would actually be more scarier if this was in the style of a junji ito story, being a metaphor of how drugs can physically and psychologically fuck you up
I think the artist did a really good job at making it seem like an uncanny experience
it goes without saying that junji ito would make this look like child's drawings (no pun intended) if you had him illustrate this story.
I live in iraq and when i was in elementary school we had this subject called ''reading" this subject's book included stories and poems, it was my favourite subject because the book had alot of fun kids stories, there was this one story that was a landmine psa,
The story talked about a bunch of boys playing football, the kids noticed that every time they start playing a boy in a wheelchair sits outside of his home and watches them so one day they decided to invite him to join along, they walk up to him and asked him if he wants to play with them, then the boy says:
"I cant i don't have any legs"
Then proceeded to show them, then they ask him why so he told them about the story of how he stumbled upon a mine planted on the ground of a forest, even though his parent always warned him about them he did not listen and tried to move it with his feet but it exploded and amputated his leg.
As a child this story not only scared me but it also made me feel devastated and sad.
My parent and teachers always told us never to carry anything from the ground even if it was a pen or a toy and after reading this story it made me way more terrified.
I can imagine how that would be quite an intense story.
Yeesh that reminds me of the "Red Banana" psa for landmines where a little girl steps on a landmine when trying to pick up toys and said red banana. The ending shot of the psa shows nothing but her blown up foot, now seperated from her body. Its so alarming to hear that dangerous things like landmines are just out in the open :(
I remember around the mid-90s when I was fairly small, there was this show on a German kids' channel where each episode was about a kid in a different, usually 3rd world, country and their struggles. There was one episode where a girl had her hand (or hands, I don't remember the details) blown off by a landmine. I clearly remember this part of her doing these special fancy hand motions at the beginning of the episodes, before it happened. YEARS later, I'd always think of it when the streetlight came and I had to run home from playing outside. I was running long a brief patch of clear, well paved, Southern German sidewalk, thinking I was gonna get my arms or legs blown off. I haven't though to it in forever before it came to my mind again after reading this comment.
If there are any Germans here, do you know that show and what it was? I thought it was "Die Rechte der Kinder" but none of the episode fit the description. Don't ask me why I want to find that disturbing piece of media, but I kinda do.
There is a British PSA about landmines, you can find online. It's a girl's soccer game and everyone is having a good time. One girl scores the winning goal and as she's jumping around with a friend, and landmines goes off. That was intense.
Then someone on the internet went and added the Benny Hill theme to it. I have a dark sense of humor so yeah it became funny.
They made a batman comic about landmines back in the 90's.
I think this is an excellent metaphor for what drugs do to the brain and highly effective warning for children.
Agreed!
[REDACTED] 🎉
@@CatastrophicConundrum shhhhhhh
@@Endymion766my bad my bad 🤐
It slowly eats your brain and body
"Drugs are bad, mkay."
-Mr. Mackey
There’s a part of me that thinks they should not show this to elementary schoolers because of how intense it is (especially the ending). But considering Vince did drugs for the first time when he was EIGHT, maybe elementary schoolers should see this. I’m not surprised his parents didn’t know or hadn’t discussed drugs with him because nobody expects a little kid to try drugs. It shows the importance of informing children one way or another about how dangerous using drugs is.
I love how the narrator says that "Vince bought some new magic" like he's a playable character in an RPG game
the scene where he is tripping is genuinely so terrifying. never have heard of this cartoon before. although I feel like I will have it stuck in my head for a while. the visuals and the storytelling are so unsettling produced how they were.
As a mother myself, I can't even imagine how hard and difficult it must have been for his mom to illustrate and narrate this. I would be breaking down and sobbing, like, that's your baby boy and knowing he may never come out the other side ok must have been so hard for her to accept.
In 1976 I was in the 6th grade. A teacher showed the class a film on the dangers of smoking cigarettes. The film showed pictures of what cigarettes do to the lungs (though I don’t remember if they were just pictures or of actual lungs). There was a lot of information on the dangerous effects of smoking. That film had such a huge impact on me that I never even tried cigarettes. I’m 61 years old now and would never think of even taking a puff. I’m thankful I saw that film.
When I was in middle school (early 2010s) my science teacher pulled out two ACTUAL preserved lungs to show us the difference between a smoker’s lung and a regular one. Don’t know if it traumatized me, so much as just grossed me out
I've become so numb to horror themes that even gore videos barely affect me, and yet this cartoon somehow still shook me to my core
The fact that you had to watch this as a kid is insane, I actually feel bad for you
A lot of kids did, I did and it fucked me up bad man, sticks with me to this day it is that effective.
@@elijahguest1885 Hope it didn’t affect you too badly
@@SirBitesALot101you guys American/european are so nice in the comment section, very much different from the netizens from my country😢
Haha, thanks for the compliment, but I'm actually Japanese lol
@@SirBitesALot101 oh wow, okay, that's explain more why you're nice😄I freakin love your country by the way! So envy!!
The crazy thing is, you can tell she’s genuinely trying to sugarcoat it for the target audience, but due to the horrors of what they went through, there’s not much of a way to really do that!
Yeah, watching it now your mind fills in the blanks
This contains spoilers so you may want to skip this comment until you've watched the video. I think what truly gets me after seeing the linked video is that it is a real story of a real 8-year old. Nobody expects their 8-year old child to get involved in pot or LSD. I have not been able to confirm it independently but according to an article written by Narayan Reddy on March 12,2017 in The Cornell Daily Sun, Vince is no longer with us as of July 3, 2015. I cannot find anything about Vince's dad or Sue Jackson Pettit, other than she is a published author. I can only imagine the crap they had to deal with.
You found something about Vince?? I couldn't find ANYTHING about him other than this video.
damn that's so fucked up
HE WAS EIGHT????
@@serenegenerally Yes, I remember in grade school warnings about teenagers that where hanging around the playground handing out candy that was laced with LSD. This was in the 70s btw.
@@catcookie6726The '70s, '80s, and early '90s were wild and scary times. I guess you could say today is but for very different reasons.
I think they should still be using this video to teach this to children even today, the fact that it’s so disturbing for many reasons shows it would be effective
they do for me, they showed one of my little relatives this.
What makes this story even sadder is that Vince had a little sister. Not only did he try to convince her to use the drugs too but she watched her big brother get devoured by the Drug Monster. I don't want my little sister to witness what that poor girl did.
Moral of the story; dont get a divorce or your kids will smoke crack
Basically 😂
Bruh.
Lol
😂
My school ALSO showed us this movie. I was around 7 or 8. Like kindergarten or first grade. I am 27 now and I still remember the vivid nightmares I had! I tried to VAGUELY look up things about it just so see if I remembered it wrong, but I couldn't find anything on it! So thank you for this nostalgic - albeit terrifying - trip down memory lane for me.
So you’re telling me some grown ass man chose an eight year old child as someone worthy of a customer?
Maybe that one Moral Orel episode about crack was more realistic than I thought 💀
Not even just an 8 year old. An 8 year old in his most vulnerable state.
Remember, the guy who gave him the drugs to begin with did so when he was dealing with the divorce of his parents. He hardly got to see his dad and he missed him dearly. It made him feel all kinds of feelings, sadness, anger, etc. And as a result, the guy took advantage of that by saying the drugs would make him happy
4:44 XD that level of discomfort freaking killed me. LOL Also, I'm sorry you got traumatized by this as a kid..I can see why horrible this could be at a young age. I'm also glad you understand the film and its symbolism. I had nightmares of Jeepers Creepers for like 2-3 years after being exposed to it at a young age until I watched it again. Understood it and the nightmares stopped. RIP Vince. Yes, this should be a series.
😱 Thank you for sharing that. As a person coming out a 40 year addiction and 7 rehabs, this really hit home. I wonder how this might’ve changed me had I seen it at the age you saw it. I saw so much of myself in this. I’m coming up on 3yrs clean and this just reinforced why I’m so happy with where I am, but still scared about where I never wanna be again. Thanks again 🙏🏾
Proud of you!! Keep on keeping on, and pray continuously! Much love from Texas! ❤
My school showed this film to us in fifth grade. I grew up in a small countryside town where the teachers would start drilling "drugs are bad" into children's heads as early as kindergarten. It felt like every after-school program or meeting had a psa about the negative effects alcohol and non-medical drugs have on the brain and body. This cartoon and the story about the girl who's face got disfigured in a drunk driving accident always stuck out the most in my mind
YES! I saw the exact same video about the girl who got disfigured. I saw that in 7th grade though.
The girl's name was Jacqui Saburido and sadly she died a few years back of cancer.
This is some real uncanny valley nightmare shit. Absolutely would've given me nightmares as a kid. In the early 90s we had DARE and Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue but somehow this actually seems WORSE, which I didn't think possible.
On the other hand, I never did drugs, so maybe it works, idk. (We also got the pictures of addicts and such. At the time it was disturbing but now it's just sad. They're human beings. That's someone's child. And they're being used as a scare tactic in a crappy children's program.)
Yeah we had Dare and the Pal program and my elementary school actually had a staff member whose job it was to teacher us drug intervention (when we were younger we actually watched films, stories, etc. about what it's like if your mom or dad has a drinking problem and how to avoid peer pressure)
Yeah, stuff like that I'm not too keen on showing kids. Thats why I think stories like these are better
The DARE program was a massive failure if you look into it.
They teach kids about addiction differently now because of how negative the results of the dare program were.
Both of my parents grew up with the dare program and they both still did drugs in their teen years.
Hearing my parents talk about their personal experiences with drugs openly and honestly is why I have never tried any. I won't even drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes for the same reason.
Teaching about drugs and addiction HAS to be more complex than just "drugs are bad so don't do them and if you're doing them then stop", or it won't be nearly as effective.
@@kodomoshawn6729 yeah I wasn't being serious when I said "maybe DARE works" because the evidence is impossible to ignore. It was a weird time to be a kid, though. Absolutely none of their scare tactics make the tiniest bit of sense in hindsight. Really, the only reason I never did drugs was lack of interest.
@@michaelthecinebro yeah at least this stuff is honest, if freaking TERRIFYING.
I remember seeing this when I was a kid. I also remember joking that the Drug Monster must be related to Puff the Magic Dragon.
Lol, I see that
Nah i tripped out when they brought up the pipe bc i was holding mine😩 The D.A.R.E program did not work on me
it's not crack. i feel like i have to disclose it is not crack. Because crack is wack. stay in school
Yeah ours wasn't DARE, or it might have been an off-shoot of it. It basically sought to achieve the same thing though.
The way this movie freaked me out when they used to show it to us in school and now I get the DARE songs stuck in my head sometimes when I’m high😂😂
My school had the DARE program and some of the PSAs were insane to hilarious.
There was one where a kid got hooked on heroin. After the 3rd time he tried it he was a full-blown junkie, there was a scene where he pulls a cigar box from under his bed and it was like a junkie pro kit. He had a needle, bent spoon lighter, rubber tube, the works.
What's the D.A.R.E. programm?
i pretty much grew up with a alcoholic drug addict mom in the 90s, i graduated from that program DARE, and i dont do drugs or drink at all. so i am proud of myself.
When I was a fourth grader, a person with local Health Center came into my class to talk about bullying and how it’s wrong. They had us watch a live action, short movie that basically consisted of a boy being the subject of bullying. He was relentlessly bullied to the point where he was chased into the street where he was hit by oncoming car. Scared the shit out of me as a kid. They show the moments before getting hit, the sound of him being hit, and the aftermath. They didn’t show his body but they showed blood and one of his shoes in the road. I mean this is what I remember. It’s possible that my mind has embellished it over the years But It’s straight up traumatized me as a kid. I still think about the shoe in the road. To this day hearing the name of the center triggers an anxiety attack.
I never saw those types of videos but I know the director of those films from some RUclipsrs The film wouldn’t have been called broken toy would it?
I know exactly what you're talking about, I saw a video of it on RUclips somewhere but I can't remember. I think it might have been Scott Cramer
@@elijahguest1885 oh Jesus! I think it was. I just looked it up. Scrolled through the video and saw the shoe. Oh my god. I could be wrong, but I don’t really wanna watch it to make sure…
@@bramblechaser162 its true go watch his other films tears on a highway about a kid getting bullied on a bus causing a car crash killing half the kids on board, the editing is amazingly bad, and scars which is even more low budget but most likely the most positive this he’s made, insane stuff.
I saw this when I was in the second grade. They took all the classes into the auditorium and showed this to us. This movie traumatized me and my friends to the point we saw the colour green as "evil". This haunted me for years, and at first when I clicked on the video, I didn't recognize it. But seeing that frame with the monster behind the boy brought back so many memories and feelings. I'm really glad someone else remembers this- and relates to those feelings. Thank you for reviewing this and bringing this back into the light🙏
You know, Disney uses green to signify the villain, in almost every one of their movies...
@@mariebelladonna437 Now that I think about it, they do don't they? Colour association is amazing
Man, seeing that in an auditorium would've been horrific
@@mariebelladonna437 Maybe except "Encanto"(which is why the twist with Bruno actually works that well).
@@mariebelladonna437 Tbf, if you want to portray any color as evil, it might as well be the least creative color of them all.
This reminds me of a story, me and the rest of my class had to read and do assignments on in either fifth or sixth grade before I switched schools.
It was about a boy living with his parents and their pet(can’t remember what it was), which starts off normally as you’d expect, but over the course of the story, the dad becomes bigger, angrier, scarier and even dragon-like, to the point, his wife, son and pet leave him, since they’d be crushed if they stay in the house with him, who now looks like a full on dragon, filling each and every room in the end.
We all kind of interpreted it as the dad literally and metaphorically “becoming too much” both towards his family and around others, in a violent or abusive way, most likely stemming from alcohol or drug addiction.
Thank you so much for making a video about this. I had tried before to search for it to no avail. I saw this over 20 years ago in public school on a VHS tape. I lived through years of people offering me drugs, especially in my teens and 20s, and I never took the offer. Part of my mind would always remember the metaphor in the story.
Something that really scared me was when we listened/watched "The Hitchhiker" by Orson wells in 8th grade. It was an old radio play and one of the educational companies put it to some cheap computer animation. Which made it even scarier. It was like one of those creepy pasta computer games. Strangely, while my class was watching a kid got startled and broke the classroom bottle of hand sanitizer and it spilled all over the floor. Whenever I smell that brand of hand sanitizer I get filled with existential dread haha
Ah Red Ribbon Week, the reason I have been passive-aggressively telling my dad to quit smoking since I was 5.
Holy crap. I can't believe you found this. I remember seeing this in elementary, but I couldn't remember most of the events or the exact name. Man this makes me feel old.
Looking back and seeing the things I missed as a kid makes this nostalgic and makes me feel unnerved.
For my fellow Swedes, I know I'm not the only one disturbed by the Alfons Åberg (or Alfie Atkins)-book/cartoon with the apparent monster under his bed. For those who don't know, the cartoon follows Alfons, who's normally a very easy-going and nice kid, wracked with guilt because he punched a younger kid some days before, and the younger kid hasn't shown up at the football field ever since then. The kid was supposed to find a lost ball, but wasn't able to, so Alfons got unreasonably angry at the kid, punched him and gave him a nosebleed, causing him to run away from there.
Alfons thinks about it while lying in bed, imagining copious amount of blood flowing out of the other kid's nose as he worries about the kid possibly being dead.
As if this wasn't creepy enough already, Alfons then notices the presence of a "monster" under his bed. It's dark under the bed, and all you can see of the monster are its cat-like eyes, just silently blinking. It's a manifestation of Alfons' guilt over the incident, and it stays there until Alfons finally manages to make it up to the younger kid (who wasn't dead obviously, but was just avoiding Alfons).
So the "monster" under Alfons' bed doesn't actually do anything except lie there, reminding Alfons of his guilt & blinking at the viewer. It seems so calm, but the aura it gives off is so damn creepy, it's continued to freak me out to this very day.
Oh, and another freaky moment is when you see how it all went down when Alfons punched the other kid. If you know Alfons, you know him as very mild-mannered, and with no violent or mean tendencies displayed in other episodes. So suddenly seeing him bully some other kid, threatening him and then punching him really gives you the creeps. Especially because when Alfons dishes out the punch, he doesn't even look angry. There's an almost dead look on his face; a silent rage. Freaky as hell!
@@rutgerhauerfan
I’m not Swedish(I’m Danish), but as someone who also read/watched Alfons as a kid, I remember that episode too!
It’s been years though, so I don’t remember everything.
psas are something i have always found people tend to overlook the artist value of regardless of the era they aired in . i think so many people assume that theres only two sides of the psa genres. either absurd "trying to be hip" styling or shock value. when thats really only a fraction of the variety of psas that exist and the functions they serve.
every psa has a target age group regardless of topic. its interesting to me that most of the time psas targeting this particular age group seemed to always perfer mimicking the familiar to teach. instead of something like this where its not just mimicking a tv show or a video game. it instead used the core method of learning for that age group or at least the more culturally common one. direct but slightly whimsical storytelling. growing up with writers like Robert Munsh, dr.suess , Simms Taback to name a few. theres something about this style of storytelling and writing that really brings more depth to the approach and care put into a psa.
i can think of a range of psas that tried to use firm storytelling to teach children valuable things but ultimately those psas dont stick in your mind in the same way, you might remember say a rhythm or a visual cue from it but the actual moral is lost over time .
which just goes to show this psa stands out in a sea of psas that over complicated things.
i wonder if its a whole unexplored genre of style for psa tbh cause the only other cases that i think of are the ones of the paper cutout cat and child going through everyday lessons . but those are from like i think the 50s so its hard to say if theyre actually doing a good job or if its the unease of old media thats causing that affect.
great video it was genuinely both engaging and informative , its always interesting to hear about peoples experience with the more obscure media out there
I actually remember this 100%. I was so young when i watched this, i didnt even realize it was about hard drugs, i always remembered it as "the boy who was swallowed by the SMOKE monster."
I just remembered it being called "The Drug Monster" 😂
@@michaelthecinebro I was like 7 or 8 tops when I saw it as a kid, at that point in my life I had never even heard of marijuana before. My dad smoked cigarettes, and that's pretty much all I knew about. I legitimately thought that the movie was about the dangers of smoking cigarettes. I blame whatever teacher at the time that showed it to me, I really needed to understand the context first.
so sad and true that reality is genuinely the scariest parts of life. this short movie is terrifying.
That’s actually so terrifying 💀😂 i’m so glad I was never forced to watch this lol
Yall's class was leaving as mine went in so I assumed you did 😂
@@michaelthecinebro NO WAY! I’ve repressed this 😂😂
Same.
a caring family terrify you into traumatization when comes to drugs
same
Not a cartoon or 'movie' per se, but i remember having to read a book in the 4th grade called 'A Bad Case of the Stripes' and when i tell you the imagery of that book, along with creepy and slow narration(due to me having dyslexia and reading comprehension problems, i needed an auditory ver. of the book) it seriously had me crying my eyes out. I tried reading it again at 18 and i still got a really nervous feeling..
No kidding? First of all, same. This book absolutely scared me to death. Secondly, this might be a topic coming this Saturday...
@michaelthecinebro oh my god, I would love that❤️!! Thank you so much❤️
When I was in middle school, most of us knew about this kid called Ben who was about 8 that dealt drugs for his parents. He was this cute little kid. Very friendly. But when we found out about him we felt terrible for his home situation. He acted empty? It's hard to describe otherwise. Like an older kid but hollow inside. My friend told the VP but we never found out what happened. Ben just stopped coming to school one day and that was that.
I don't get notifications (like if I get replies) but yeah we all hoped for his happiness and safety.
oh that’s heartbreaking :(
Oh my gosh! I watched this video with my class back in fourth grade. One week every year of elementary school, we would go over the dangers of drugs. This was by far the scariest video they showed us. I didn't sleep well for weeks after watching it. Always worried I would see the drug dragon in the middle of the night. I completely forgot this film existed until now.
the drug monster got me on my 20s and half of my 30s, now Im free, dont let it get to you
13:37 HOLD UP I want to hear about what childhood trauma The book of Pooh could have caused
0:20 me: that one European Alice in wonderland that’s live action from… the 70’s? Freaked me out 😅
FOUND IT! It’s called Alice, (1988) it was directed by Jan Svankmajer
There’s info on imdb
Also the full movie’s literally on RUclips apparently 😅
I love this movie! It's something different compared to all the other Disney inspired versions of Alice in Wonderland.
@@ScottyFang
Oh duuuude I LOVE Jan Svankmajer!! I found out about him in high school and I love how surreal and creepy his animations are
@@realbrigidtenenbaum
What's your opinion on American McGee's Alice if you've heard of it? It's a really great game and has an amazing ost
I may have commented here, but I feel like I have more to say. This time, it is about the film itself. It seems that instead of fully dumbing the issue down for kids, it instead makes it multi-layed with the shaded drawings and monster analogy. When Vince tries out the drug for the first time, he is in Stage 1 of addiction. When Vince starts stealing money to buy more drugs, I think that’s Stage 2. But he’s not fully dependent yet. But then, he used the drugs so much that he entered Stage 3, tolerence. However, because his mother threw away the drugs, he skipped to Stage 6, which is relapse. That was when he returned to drugs, thus the cycle began again. He went back to Stage 1, initial use, then Stage 2, abuse, then Stage 3, tolerence and then, the monster swallowed him, which may represent his entry into Stage 4, Dependence. The narrator also said: “The boy only loved the magic of the Drug Monster”, which probably further solidifies that this is indeed Stage 4. Vince selling the drugs to kids is probably Stage 5, addiction. He’s so addicted that he wants others to become addicted just like him. But thankfully, the police stopped him and put him in prison. Also, one of the other comments said that he died on July 3rd, 2015. This was because of a drug overdose. That was the 6th and final stage, relapse. But this relapse would be his last.
I WATCHED THIS BACK IN LIKE 2002 AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! I really thought I’d imagined it, and had pretty much completely forgotten about it until now. Wild!
What gives people the right to traumatize kids with stuff like this? This guy said even watching it now scared him like anticipating the acid scene. Why do kids need to be shown something that makes them cry, not eat lunch, and be afraid of something for the rest of their lives? It’s not like you’re powerless as an adult. Just tell kids to tell an adult if someone tries to give them drugs and move on. God damn. I remember being so scared watching stuff like this one time I plugged my ears and closed my eyes. My teacher made me unplug my ears and watch. I was fucking 5. Fuck any administration who showed this to kids
I remember Red Ribbon week!!!! Also was fr scared by that librarian lol
In my school, a red ribbon was for HIV/AIDs awareness.
That blobfish image is more disturbing than many know. It's a deformed corpse that imploded due to rapid pressure change, leading it to be completely unrecognizable. Living blobfish just look like normal, plain-looking fish.
I feel so bad for blobfishes. They're not ugly, they're just deformed from ppl taking them out of their natural habitats :(
6:17 When the Jack Daniel’s runs out.
This before and after drug pictures definitely kept me away from hard drugs. And I remember a presentation of a mom who made her daughter who overdosed journal into a book and that also stuck with me and I also went to an alternative school that showed us pictures of crimes scenes
For the record he died after getting out of prison and relapsing, which is a shame because not only was he in a relationship and had a kid according to a blog his mom posted on, but his mom was planning to write a sequel story which I guess was supposed to be a happy story of him turning his life around 😢
That’s so awful man.😢
I saw this in elementary school, I got messed up to the point of vomiting. 🤮
In the 2010s I saw a website that continued Vince’s story and chronicling his post prison recovery. It took a whole lot of faith and dedication for him to get clean.
He also was revealed to have become a stepdad and a regular dad during this time in hopes of escaping addiction, but that just gave him a reason to hide his addiction. I hope can find that site again.
I wasn't able to find anything about the people who made this. Tell me when you find the site! 😂
I fully sobbed when I learnt it was a true story told byb his mother and that he died and started when he was 8. I hope people who sell drugs to children never see the light of day and get help, and I hope that they realize how fucked up it is.
Now that I think about it, I'd like to see a Babadook inspired film but instead of grief, it's about substance abuse with the monster, like the Babadook, being a tulpa that's a representation of it. I can imagine the monster possessing one of the kids in a family who's dealing with drugs and is slowly changing to look like someone who's gone through severe addiction, almost like a walking, distorted, infected corpse.
That sounds awesome ngl
Why does the drug monster look like a pretty cool fursona tho
Might be in relation to "Puff the Magic Dragon?"
Because you’re not a kid anymore and the monster lost its punch.
I have a dragon fursona and honestly I thought the same
wouldn't that be a scalie?
@@Leon.K69 not if its a fluffy dragon
(Tho i would argue scalies are a subtype of furries)
I live in Argentina and I remember that when I was in primary school and in a "special class" a teacher showed us a film about a tragedy that occurred in my country, it is called "La Noche de los Lapices", it is about a series of kidnapp1ngs of high school students who had demanded the granting of discounted bus tickets for students.
The film recreates the story from the beginning of the student protests, and the second part tells the circumstances of the young people, following in parallel the situation of the families of the captives and that of their captors.
The film focuses more on the physical and psychological experience of the characters than on the political and social context developing the story in a way that it is seen as universal and capable of happening in any authoritarian regime.
I still remember the film, it shows you that harsh reality and for 13/14 year olds it was very hard to see that, but the film is worth it, it is not suitable for sensitive people but it is always better to know history so that it is not repeated... The film is here on RUclips in case you want to see it ☺
Imagine being totally wasted watching this cartoon
Whoever did the music/sound design did a great job. The distorted forced happiness of the music when he tries the new drug makes it really uncomfortable
What makes me angry about these anti-drug propaganda videos like this, is that they never discuss the reasons why people turn to drugs an alcohol in the first place. I mean there must be something else wrong with Vince which made him try drugs in the first place. Yes divorce can be hard on a child, but there must be other factors involved like is he suffering from bipolar disorder? Was he genetically disposed to be addicted to other types of vice? Even if he didn't smoke "The Magic Pipe" would he have divulged into alcoholism at a later age?
so a movie that absolutely terrified me was return to oz from 1985. that movie messed me up so bad i thought i had dreamet it up . i only found out it was real movie in 8th ish grade . i was like maybe 6 when i first saw it and for me the jump from what wizard of oz was to what the movies was freaky.
Wow I never saw this and I am happy I never did. Goosebumps was rough enough for me as a kid. Other things like Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Courage the cowardly dog also had me in shivers as a kid xD
Ah yes... Courage... hated that show 😂
So glad you put this together -- it's really reassuring to hear that I'm not the only one who got shaken up by this. I saw it in 6th grade and was going through some serious stuff, and WALKED IN on this after getting back to class late. Had no context about what was going on or why we were watching this thing... messed me up for at least a day or two. Still don't like thinking about it too much.
If you wanna go down the rabbit hole of creepy in-school PSAs for kids, there's one I vaguely remember from early elementary school. It was pretty standard-fare "don't get in the van & don't let people touch you below the waist" stuff; I personally didn't find it too unsettling, but iirc it shook a few kids up. Only part I remember is something about a kid getting piano lessons from a guy that turned out to be a creep.
When I was a kid, my dad brought home 3 vhs tapes of something called “The Dangerous Journey”. I’m 25 now and was probably about 4-5 when I first saw these movies. I grew up in a Christian home and the movies were an adaptation of the story “A Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan.
The movie was done in almost the exact same format as this one! It was narrated with still drawn images. And boy let me tell you, those images were HAUNTING. There were two scenes in particular that kept me up at night literally shaking as a 4 year old.
The first was the main character’s (named Christian) battle with Apollyon (Satan). The way Apollyon was draw was literal nightmare fuel. I would hear his snarles in my dreams and he looked like pure death.
The second scene was when Christian walked through “The valley of the shadow of death”. For like a good 10 minutes Christian is walking on this extremely narrow pathway with a dark black abyss surrounding him on all sides, all the while you hear and see literal depictions of demons swirling him and tormenting him. The sounds those demons made would keep me up all night. I couldn’t get a wink of sleep after watching that.
It took me YEARS to be able to watch it again but as an adult who loves horror, I actually love it now! The art is actually very beautifully done. Also as a Christian, I can appreciate the message that the story is trying to tell and actually find it kind of cozy now. Definitely give it a watch. There’s a full version of it on here!
I remember seeing this back in the 2nd grade. It scared the crap out of me back then and still does today.
I'm no artist, but this art style is damned awful. And I don't find this scary myself, but kid me definitely would've been shook lol
This is traumatizing ngl
Fr
When I was a kid, few books scared me. Defeating the drug monster by making sure I would never be addicted to drugs as a child was easy. But the horror of the Vietnam War? That swallowed me, despite I was Icelandic. Dracula by Bram Stoker felt like an escape route from reality while tons of boys and girls were swallowed up by the drug monster. The Never Ending Story wasn´t scary. Watching Tarzan being raised by apes wasn´t scary. Of course Scar was scary. Reading about Marvel villains going crazy committing acts of genocide wasn´t scary because it was all happening elsewhere in reality. But watching Apocalypse Now for the first time with a group of 11 to 13 year olds scarred me emotionally for the rest of my life. That was scary. That was director Francis Ford Coppola telling us about things that happened in real life - the horrors of the Vietnam War. Thanks for your video man!! Best wishes to you from Iceland.
I immediately clicked on this video because of the thumbnail. I remember that story! It made me not want to take drugs lol, so it was effective for sure. Thanks for the video, brough back some memories.
Requiem for a dream had the same affect on me. Basically contributed to my insomnia. To this very day I cannot feel ok even if I think about the movie. And the ending music. Oh god why. I just couldn't. Still too much. I just watch the trailer and the ending and it scared the shit out of me.
Metaphors and parables are great when you're trying to teach kids social-emotional or moral lessons, but risky or problematic when you're trying to teach them concrete skills or teach them to avoid a specific kind of threat or problem, because young children may not understand that the drug monster is not a real monster, that the "magical pipe" is a particular piece of drug paraphernalia, and that candy, prescription medications, vitamins, and food aren't the "drugs" they're being warned about. It's really hard to strike that fine balance in children's educational media between being trite, condescending and corny on one hand and excessively and counterproductively scary on the other. Ideally, you want kids to come away with a clear understanding of the specific threat *and* a very clear and confident action plan for how to avoid and deal with it.
I remember this PSA being reccomended to me on RUclips.
I grew up British and when comparing British nostalgia to American nostalgia I realised that while Americans have more drug PSAs we have more fire safety PIFs.
The Welsh came up with a whole TV show to teach kids about fire safety.
I'd say my equivalent to The Drug Monster is a PIF that no critic on RUclips has covered; Francis The Firefly.
I remember it well, the fire brigade came to my infants school with a portable cinema just to show Francis the Firefly that may have tricked my brain into thinking it was a full length movie also there was a mannequin dressed as a fireman which I found a bit distracting.
I think it's because Americans are the number one customers of the Mexican and South American drug trade IIRC
starting drugs at 8 years old is terrifying. 💀
1:24 ANNUALLY? Bruh, we got ONE class on the subject with drug effects imitating goggles and an expert talk on the matter in 7th grade and that's it😂. But since this country is like one county in the US in size, let alone the GDP or money spent on education being a factor.
Drugs are bad and I CHOSE at like the age of 7 to never do it in my life. Alcohol and tea are not as harmful, especially the latter but they're easy to not get addicted to. Speaking of tea, I didn't drink a sip in a looooong time. Mainly because I am scared that I burn myself making one. And given my record with luck, even if the chance is low I'd still be able to hurt myself with that
Wow, thats a lot 😂
OMG!! I remember this, my school had a red ribbon week too!
This PSA traumatized me, i clearly remember my legs trembling in the cafeteria
4:14 He starts stealing money, flunking his classes, and listens to METAL!
Metal can be listened to by any sane person.
@@milcahreyes5287 I just really liked that the music doesn't have an album name, or a band name... it just says "Metal"...
Seeing junkies on the street, and in crime shows was what scared me when I was a child. Being around alcoholics also made me despise that substance. I don't get why hard drugs appeal to so damn many. Did they not grow up in the same world?
@@caucasoidape8838 idk. Different circumstances I guess 🤷♂️
There's a plethora of documentaries, books and songs that speaks from the perspective on an addict and explain why.
TL;Dr: Getting high brings relief from the turmoil people felt and addiction causes physical changes to the brain.
Very little treatment available for people with mental health issues and trauma, as well as chronic pain, especially for people in poverty. People who are in pain seek relief in any way they can find, and addiction itself is a disorder. It runs in families and doesn't discriminate between substances, gambling, spending money, sex...it can happen to anyone. All it takes is a wonky gene and a bad experience
Yeaahh man so true 😞😞
I witnessed drug abuse in my own family. What I saw as a child I can never unsee.
I have to admit if I saw this as a kid I would think "so where is the magical pipe that you speak of? Monsters are cool dude!".. don't worry I found the magical pipe
There is one PSA, I don't remember it well, but it was in health class and regarding smoking cigarettes. It is mostly similar, an animated kid's book, and uses scary imagery of monsters to illustrate addiction, HOWEVER, A common refrain in the video is "Smoking Calms My Nerves" said in a funny way. That line stuck with me to this day, and may have planted the mental seeds to start my smoking habit, thus having the exact opposite intended effect of the film. That's all I remember, no idea what it was called.
The only anti drug stuff I remember from school was a D.A.R.E. program that consisted of a random volunteer adult and a packet of "likely scenarios" we would have to then decide what the right choice (aka, whatever variation of "saying no"). I only remember one where a kid found some beer under his brother’s bed while alone and "No one was pressuring him to take a drink. What should he do?" and all I could wonder was why exactly this boy was just randomly under his brother’s bed and possibly stealing from him. It shouldn’t matter if he found beer, he shouldn’t be in his brother’s room without permission! (That was the rule at my house.)
I watched that movie back in 2nd grade, and it scared the crap out of me as a kid too!
This kind of looks like a short horror film trying to replicate a public access tv show or low budget educational VHS tape that would go down a much darker path like The Kid and the Camera and maybe end with it turning out that the kid was literally eaten and we see the mother's reaction and the body is left to the viewer's imagination (kind of like Moonraven's version of Tailypo).
As an artist I love the art direction
"Ugh, verse, oi."
I remember the drugs-r-bad-mmkay programs starting in first grade. And they showed quite a few, not only about drugs but smoking and alcohol. The smoking videos in particular really got to me because I had a relative who smoked.
I always felt like PSA/PIF makers hated kids. Not this one personally, but in general! Sorry for your experience!
I never EVER KNEW that this short film even existed until I watched your video. We learn something new everyday :p
I remember watching this movie in 5th grade! It was so horrifying I couldn't sleep. But then I realized that "being eaten by the drug monster" is just a metaphor for when a drug becomes addictive.
The name "Pettit", it's said like "pet it", like what you'd do to a Drug Dragon. Or at least I would do anyway. A "Drugon".
Holy crap! I remembered this! I saw it in 2nd grade and it freaked me out! My heart nearly stopped when you said the video was still going because I knew I was instantly about to witness something that scared me as a kid.
When I was like 8 years old my school actually went to a theater where we watched a movie where this woman was talking about some kid going to a lake and eventually drowning or something like that. But basically this was a French live stream short film about depression or something like that. I can't remember very well at all, all I remember is the black and white art style and the heavy shading. I dunno, this kinda reminded me of that. I don't have an exact translation of the name but I assume it's something like "the dark lake" I just thought it was fun and didn't really see the theme or message at the time. :)
I never heard of this short film until you covered it, but I’m a Xellenial, having been a kid in the Reagan era and remembering Red Ribbon weeks in my adolescence and adulthood. My mom was a nurse so if I ever wanted to know of the affects drugs have on the body, she told me. Plus, I witnessed my dad overcoming nicotine. He and mom gave up alcohol long before I was born but the strongest addiction to overcome was smoking. Fortunately dad quit cold Turkey with mom’s prodding and my tombstone illustration at ten. It was enough to convince him and I had him up until he turned eighty two.
oh my god this brought up insane memories! i watched this in school when i was in 5th grade & the reveal that Vince was real gave me nightmares, i barely remembered the rest but the moment i saw the art style it all came flooding back to me. i always hated red ribbon week because all of the videos & stuff they showed us scared me as a super anxious kid lol. cartoon all-stars to the rescue is one that’s really stuck with me too all these years, it had a bunch of popular cartoon characters trying to help a boy addicted to drugs & it really unsettled me
10:43 I actually GASPED when you showed that the woman who made this movie was actually Vince’s mom. Fucking devastating. Jesus.
This was so heavy and surprisingly disturbing in the art, story, music, sounds, and the revelation of it being a true story that I’m gonna have to decompress and watch something light after this.
Monster house freaked me tf out when I was little. Weirdly coraline didnt.
I had a reeeeeally magnesium deficiency which is linked to severe anxiety as a kid and I tweaked out after watching coraline 😭
This is so scary to me now I’d probably die watching this in elementary 😭
In elementary school for PE they made us watch a video on skin cancer and the importance of sun screen. The video had clips of surgeries and victims before and after pics. Boy its been over 20 years and till this day even if i walk from car to the door without sunscreen I'm having a bad day. 😭